How will the Port Authority’s Proposed Move Impact Cleveland?
The City of Cleveland’s Planning Commission recently approved a new vision for the city entitled “Re-Imagining a More Sustainable Cleveland,” which is a 36-page policy statement that brings hope for a smaller, greener and healthier city. The goals of this vision includes bigger parks, cleaner watersheds and a growing agricultural sector. But this policy statement follows closely and oddly on the heels of a decision by the same Cleveland Planning Commission, Mayor Frank Jackson and the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority to construct a taxpayer funded, 200-acre industrial port authority facility.
This project, if implemented, would eliminate the existing E. 55th Street Lakefront State Park and Marina and hundreds of acres of protected waters for recreational boats between the U.S. breakwall and the Cleveland shoreline, and negatively impact the lakefront land between E. 55th Street and Gordon State Park at E. 72nd Street. Opponents of this plan are also concerned about the impact the port authority’s move will have on the new Dike 14 Nature Preserve, located just north of Gordon State Park.
The port authority’s plan would permanently remove public recreational amenities at E. 55th Street that include the state marina with 268 boat slips, 20 transient docks, ample parking, restaurant and concession building; the State Park with a 10-foot wide promenade and fishing access that spans 1,200 lineal feet along the east and north sides of the park, picnic areas, toilet facilities and ample parking; 700 lineal feet of shoreline bikeway and fishing access that connect the E. 55th Lakefront State Park with lower Gordon State Park; and spacious, protected recreational waters for boaters within the federal breakwall that would be consumed by a 200-acre confined disposal facility (CDF), and subsequent Port facility and security buffer. The E. 55th Cleveland Lakefront State Park is primarily used by inner city residents, many of who use the promenade for subsistence fishing for their families and consider this lakefront park an oasis.
The port authority’s proposal is a reversal of the plans by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and City of Cleveland to expand the parkland and marina space at the E. 55th Lakefront State Park and Marina and to open up more of Cleveland’s lakefront to public access. The port authority’s proposal also violates Cleveland’s own comprehensive Lakefront Plan, which was created a few years ago and approved by the city’s planning commission after three years of input and broad based support from thousands of residents, the State of Ohio and Cuyahoga County.
The Dike 14 Nature Preserve Committee, a grassroots group of citizens and organizations in Northeast Ohio that has been working for eight years to create a nature preserve at Dike 14, has spoken out against the port authority’s plan. The Committee does not oppose the construction of a CDF at East 55th by the Army Corps, as long as the CDF is built to complement, expand and allow the continued existence of the park and marina facilities at E. 55th Street.
In addition, the committee has expressed concern that the Army Corps’ Environmental Impact Study of the new 200-acre CDF will consider only the environmental impacts of the construction and filling of a new CDF, and will provide no analysis of the environmental impacts of the Port’s proposed move. These industrial impacts should be thoroughly studied before a decision is made.
The Army Corps is planning to hold a public hearing on its EIS this spring. The Committee has asked for full public disclosure by the Army Corps, including financial costs, timing and environmental impacts of the construction of a CDF for the purpose of creating an industrial facility.
For more information, contact Barbara Martin at 440-243-9070, barbaramartin2001@juno.com or Bill Gruber at 216-371-3570, gruberwl@aol.com.